[Bill Davis]

Perhaps the central problem you – and MANY other “professionals” are having is that for you – editing is EXCLUSIVELY the kind of editing you do.

We are ALL wedded to an individual experience model. And it’s incredibly easy to fall into the trap of “video editing is what my experience tells me it is.” – I personally fall into that trap all the time. But I’m trying to change my thinking.

I still remember a guy asking me some years back for help on problems he was having doing a commercial – and I started preaching the gospel of 29 and a half seconds – only to discover he wasn’t doing broadcast at all, but rather doing a WEB commercial and actually needed something that could run anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 MINUTES!

He was getting paid for his work the same way I was – but NOT working under the same traditional standards I’ve spent decades thinking were absolute.

In FCP’s early days, I had the great fortune to spend time talking to Apple Product evangelists, early users group leaders and even a few people at Apple itself (including a couple of very brief chances to talk directly to Randy U. and Brian the product manager. One thing I always made it a point to note is that for every editor like Walter Murch or The Coens, there are dozens, hundreds or now thousands who are NOT like them at all. Most of us who edit video for business purposes do very, VERY different work than “Hollywood style” movie cutting. We work on corporate presentations, business videos, demo reels, presentation embeds, infomercials, and a host of other “non-movie” tasks. Personally, I’ve edited more than 300 corporate videos and I’ve NEVER cut a movie – and have absolutely no desire to do so.

“Movie-making” is the visible and important tip of the spear – and drives a lot of acceptance for the brand – but the maybe 10,000 Sundance submissions PALE in comparison to the thousands of corporate communications pieces done each and every day around the world with FCP.

FCP-X and it’s new way of thinking about content over time might create major difficulties for some types of work in these early days. But if you can’t open your brain up to the new possibilities of what it MIGHT do very much better – I suspect you’re going to miss something.

And if it DOES offer speed and data base flexibility and superior “agility” in the long run, I suspect many of the issues that it has today will fall pretty rapidly over it’s development cycle.

If apple has truly developed a new “engine” here – while it makes perfect sense to debut it in something akin to a sports car – if that engine approach is fundamentally efficient and powerful and durable – I suspect it will eventually end up in both motorcycles and long haul trucks.

We’ll see.

Great discussion, btw. I’m delighted so see the knees stop jerking and some rational discussion of the underpinnings here. THIS is far more useful than the chicken little stuff from the first weeks.

Bravo, all.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Is it at all instructive that prior to the advent of word processing, humans were able to easily write novels with grace, eloquence and a clearly unfolding plot?

Word processing certainly changed how writers approach the mechanics of writing – since there’s no longer the same penalty for exploration and re-arangement as there was before you could cut and paste text as easily – but the essence of what makes a story sing didn’t actually change all that much from the typing to the word processing era.

Perhaps we’ll see the same with editors who use this new tool.

Perhaps the human taste for storytelling fits within a more narrow set of parameters than we might think? And in the end, we’ll just use the new tools to create the same types of finished products?

The advent of power tools didn’t actually change the nature of what a house is all that much. Wood, concrete, glass, metal studs – the materials, techniques and embedded systems may change, but the vast, vast majority of homes are still merely a basic arrangement of rooms – because that form satisfies our needs really well.

Just thinking here.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Doug,

I don’t disagree with you at all – but – we also have to realize that there will be some functional limits on the relevance of older approaches to modern processes.

Cutting on a Steenbeck may well imposes some important understandings and disciplines on the student.

But few of them will really NEED to know that to function in the modern editing world.

I’m not sure a modern math teacher would be prized if he or she demanded that their students master the slide rule before moving on to the calculator. It’s a generation too far for significant relevance.

Reminds me of sharing a cab at NAB one year with some young audio editors. I mentioned that I started out cutting tape on a splicing block and they were FASCINATED. They had never editing in any fashion other than digitally. That happened more than a decade ago.

At some point tools move on. That’s just the way it’s always been.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Quote:
If you grow up in Apple’s new paradigm and then decide you want to cut at a post facility using anything else, something tells me you’d better have a lights out demo for them to be willing to spend the time and effort to get you out of that paradigm.

Christopher Gildenstern
Creative/Production Director
Barnes Chase & Davis, Inc.
Advertising, Marketing, New Medi

Or…

The new “editor” shows up at your facility…
you’ll give him the locator/unlock code to the footage storage pool…
he or she jacks in their laptop/pad/whatever editing interface to the pool…
works as long as it takes –
and output you a file with enough meta-data tags describing every editing decision, type adjustment, timing tweek and shift that they just made – so that whoever does the next edit can build on that.

And the editing PROGRAM he or she uses is incidental to the entire process – just as the brush a particular artist uses is incidental to the process of creating a painting?

That ONLY might exist in a world where clips aren’t locked to a program – and robust metadata is the CORE of the edit – rather than today’s world where a monolithic core program is NECESSARY to the manipulation of the data that it uses.

Today, if you write a document in Word, I can open it in a dozen different word processors because they all understand (more or less) the underlying tags that reside atop the basic ascii code.

Maybe future video editing programs should be MORE like word processors than today’s “program locked data in a program locked code base?”

But to get there, we need a MUCH better data handling engine than we’ve got in the current structure. Perhaps that’s one meta-strategy behind the FCP-X re-write? The database is every BIT as important as the video manipulation tags (program features) because in the long run, it’s ALL just digital data – and if you can tag it really, really well – than anyone can use those tags in ANY program to access and manipulate it?

Perhaps?

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Maybe I’m not looking in the same places….but I’ve noticed a rapid drop off of the flood of posts scared about the death of DVD-Studio Pro.

It kinda parallels my business experience where up to about 6 months ago every single client requested DVD burns for review.

This year, maybe two of my last twenty projects ever got burned to plastic. They all got reviewed and distributed via web upload.

I remember getting stuck with my last order of VHS blanks a decade ago.

It seems like OVERNIGHT, nobody wanted them anymore.

Live and learn.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Well,

Saving time and money are excellent goals if your entire approach to creating content is business-oriented. But that’s just ONE way to view business. You can simply build a slightly better pizza stand and compete on that basis – or you can invent a new food and create a new category. Apple, Google, et al didn’t get to the top of the pyramid by simply making incremental changes – they re-structured the fundamental nature of their industries.

The most valuable and lasting art is often that which pushes so many boundries upon release that it’s reviled in it’s own time – but comes to be seen later as groundbreaking and signals a new way of thinking about the form.

I’m NOT saying FCP-X is “art.” just that it’s a pretty radical re-thinking of what editing software should be. And that’s pretty cool on it’s face.

Whether it becomes any kind of “standard” is a function of much more than it’s underlying quality OR utility.

Imagine the Venn diagrams for “pop music” and “great music” – just don’t expect too much overlap.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

VERY interesting discussion. (Thanks everyone for keeping the signal to noise ratio high in this.)

My contribution is to suggest a brief exercise of looking at learning FCP-X through the lens of modern education.

There’s a school of thought that the best path is to focus on the basics. Drill in reading, writing and math fundamentals. Require ever more standardized tests. Students (or programs!) that don’t meet the basic criteria FAIL.

But I happen to have a kid with a learning disability. He’s a very smart kid, but has a brain that struggles mightly with written expression. He’s an auditory learner. When I was reading him Harry Potter Book FOUR, he was correcting my recollections of Book ONE that I’d read to him 3 years previously.

Standardized tests have always been a NIGHTMARE for him – because he learns differently than the norm. A lesson plan, a test, or a piece of software – that relies on big manuals, 19th century processes, and a “do it THIS way or you’re not doing it correctly” foundation will FAIL him at every turn.

With FCP-X – we’re ALL being asked to alter our comfortable mode of past learning. The program designers and writers essentially have said – the industry has done this task in a particular fashion that’s appealed to a group of people who edit a particular way for a long time. But we think we see a better way to approach the problems we see in the future of computer based editing. We think that we can leverage the increasing capabilities of the hardware and software tools at our disposal to incorporate new ways of approaching the problem that we think will be both relevant and superior tools that will best fit the FUTURE needs of media creation.

You can easily argue that if you take my son’s reading story above literally, that the FCP-X team has designed for a small – special needs subset of the overall class of editors. And if you’re correct about that, the software will fail.

Apple, is betting, however that there’s a larger shift possible. That re-thinking the classroom model to provide a DIFFERENT kind of flexibility – moving away from the standardized tests and creating a world where tasks aren’t so shoe-horned into a traditional mindset has real value in moving the whole notion of visual content creation and manipulation into a world of more modern tools and thinking. (Kinda like how the excelling schools now ADAPT to various learning styles, rather than MAKING kids learn exclusively by a worksheet model that works for many, but utterly fails for a significant percentage as well.

It is a truth that the US system of education is in a bit of a crisis. Little innovation and LOTS of inertia, hidebound thinking and a massive desire to simply tinker around the edges rather than looking for a foundationally better way. Apple clearly believes that the software industry has gotten pretty similar. Massive entrenched approaches that produce incremental improvements at best.

Apple has the money, power and guts to take a shot at re-inventing the game.

Time will tell if it works – but at LEAST they aren’t simply accepting that the current way MUST be the right way and must be preserved at all cost.

Good for them, in my view.

Bring on the core engine database changes. Bring on some new thinking. MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE. Please. Because looking back, I can see with the wisdom of age that I’ve always learned by baby steps when I’m happy – but I stretch mightily when I’m confronted by something truly challenging (and possibly very uncomfortable!)

I suspect that for anyone embarking on FCP-X exploration – as many here are – will become MUCH better editors in the long run. Simply because they allowed themselves to be pulled and tugged into new ways of thinking. (Just like my wife and I did when helping my son navigate an educations system that was NOT working for him.)

Grow or perish.

As it’s always been.

For what it’s worth.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

I suspect that “distributed workflow” will be more and more central to the way we work in the future.

I’m personally experiencing a breakdown of the traditional “ad agency” model of business from years back where a single shop had management, research, creatives, production personnel and support staff in the same building – and instead am currently working on more projects that have devolved into ad hoc working groups of specialists separated by long distances but tied together by electronic means.

This parallels what you’re describing.

What I’m learning is that simple functions like file naming, checklist maintenance, and peer review have to be done very differently in this new virtual office. There are plenty of tools available, but VERY few standards on HOW it should be done.

We currently have such a “distributed project” in house for a large company. The client is in St. Louis, MO. The lead researcher and art director in San Diego. And my small team in Scottsdale, responaible for building the final video and presentation files.

As Mark indicated, the only real “large file” hassle is making sure that the initial source files are delivered to the shop doing the actual assembly. From that point, we’ve had no issue getting everyone to do review and approvals using small, compressed versions that are easily web-deliverable.

If you’re working on long-form projects it might be more difficult and you might have to “chunk” them up more for delivery – but we work almost exclusively in under 10 minute video chunks and so working virtually isn’t a big deal.

Actually, I usually use iPhone encodes for posting – most of the creative team has Macs – but when PC folks are involved, I just output WMV-9 files at 320×240 and those are small enough to email as well.

As mentioned above, the biggest hassle is establishing STANDARDS for file naming, revision tracking, and program structures. If you don’t take that seriously up front – it gets VERY messy very fast when multiple shops in multiple states are trying to work with the same files.

Good luck.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Mommy took away my beloved sugary CANDY – and put a lame piece of FRUIT in it’s place.

(squalling)

I’ve been MOLESTED!

actually, considering your personal brave willingness to bandy the term “molested” around as you have, perhaps you’d like us to enable you temporary access to the terms “holocaust” and “nazis” for your next FCP-X context posts?

I’m sure none of the grown-ups in the discussion will mind one bit…

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

I’m in “wait for the client’s content people to decide stuff” mode on a project so have too much time on my hands today! – my apologies in advance.

Today’s thoughts for anyone who cares.

I recently ran across an odd article that might be peripherally relevant to what this forum is experiencing – so I’m going to bring it up. Feel free to dive out of this if you get bored, it’s long winded – sorry.

On a technical forum I monitor (Ars Technica) one of the editors went to see a new doctor. As he was filling out his medical forms, he came across one that ASSIGNED COPYRIGHT to any of his postings TO THE DOCTOR. – no, NOT just his postings to the doctors web site – but any comment about that doctor on ANY public forum. Complaint on YELP? Copyright to that comment now BELONGS to the doctor and as such, upon the posting of ANY negative comment the doctor can claim copyright violation and have the comment removed.

That’s pretty scary, huh?

That article has a bearing to this discussion,because I came away with a better understanding, (I believe,) that in an increasingly “social” world, a single COMPLAINING customer HAS to be understood to be coming from an unusually ACTIVIST position. And that even the finest doctor WILL have negative public posts – precisely because no-one can satisfy everyone. The key is to understand that negative comments have CONTEXT. And to evaluate them fairly, all of us have to understand that need for context in order to see what they actually mean.

Yes, bad comments CAN mean that a doctor is incompetent. But they can also point to a great doctor that’s given only the toughest cases and therefore has a WORSE cure record than a lesser skilled doctor that is given only patients with easy to handle maladies. Context is everything.

And I think most of this whole ugly forum debate has been a massive exercise in each side mis-understanding the other sides CONTEXT.

I see it as It’s the modern version of the meme that a happy customer will tell a couple of friends, but an unhappy one will tell lots of people. Satisfaction is common and simple. Dis-satisfaction allows us to draw a crowd, rant, and fire the blood. So it’s a temptation.

What makes the characters interesting in entertainment? Acceptance? Or conflict? JK Rowling is passed the Queen of England in wealth in the blink of an historical eye. Why? Because she wrote satisfied characters? Clearly, negativity and conflict is JUCIER and EASIER to put on the screen than calmness and rationality, isn’t it?

Others see the SAME posts I see, and filter them into a world-view where the clueless simply can’t see the massive flaws in the software that they’re staring at. Or perhaps we do see them, but simply contextualize them differently..

Be clear here. I am NOT using this analogy to say that FCP-X is without flaws. That is NOT the point of writing here. It’s to acknowledge that group dynamics are a real force in communications.

And the group dynamic in this forum, nearly from the hour of FCP-X release has been a clear world-view by many that FCP-X is largely an abomination. Make no mistake, that, in itself, is a fair and defensible viewpoint. Just not necessarily an accurate one. And certainly not a PROVEN one at this early stage. It’s JUST an assertion.

But I truly believe that in the public opinion shaping realities of today – the concept that FCP-X is totally bad – is as easy to sell as McDonalds’ hamburgers. But like those hamburgers, the FCP-X product is a market reality, no different than any other commodity. There’s a camp that believes that a McDonalds’ burger is the height of cuisine. And another, equally defensible view that they are the gastronomic equivelent of EVIL. Both views have rationality behind them. It’s food that is consistently safe to eat, and very palatable, and inexpensive, BUT also has contrasting elements that round out the story. It’s not a good choice if you’re watching calories, or fat content, or sodium. In the context of what YOU need, it may be absolutely fine. My rail-thin 18 year old kid can gorge himself at McDonalds and it’s a TOTALLY positive experience. I eat there and the rush of sense-memory delight is replaced with calorie guilt and often the feeling that I need to lie down and take a nap. Same food experience, different CONTEXTS.

The single thing that makes the FCP-X abomination viewpoint MORE suspect to me is that it was largely a REACTIONARY battle cry. It was posted within HOURS (if not minutes) of the release. And when I started with playing around with FCP-X, the very FIRST thing I ran into was that I was NOT going to be able to understand it in a few hours, days, weeks, or possibly months! That was simply no where NEAR enough time to live with and understand such a fundamental change in editing concepts.

Again, FCP X may prove to be everything it’s critics say. It may be a total failure. But if so, I’d prefer it to fail on it’s merits in the market – not to die the death of a thousand cuts inflicted by ignorance. And make no mistake, in the first week we were ALL ignorant of its reality. I personally think that we ALL still are. (I know I certainly am.) I’m just now starting to see a wider spectrum of the more informed opinions. And INFORMED opinions are, I believe, particularly hard to come by here – precisely because this is such a radical departure. When radical departures in music, literature, art, etc have happened in history – one VERY common story is that they are reviled out of the gate – and only after time are they seen as revolutionary. That MAY be happening here – or it absolutely may not. But that process IS an indisputable historical fact. Just ask Igor Stravinsky. The bigger the change, the harder it is for people to digest rapidly.

Some clearly point out FCP-X’s shortcomings. Others concentrate on it’s promise. But now we’re finally starting to get a little sniff of perspective, perhaps the most valuable decision making tool of them all.

I’ve been so busy with paid work that I’ve had to nibble at FCP-X rather than come anywhere near a deep understanding. But I am old and wise enough that when you go out on a new date after years of a stable relationship – the single dumbest thing you can do is spend the entire evening comparing the person across the table to your ex. Understandable? You bet. Human? Totally. But about the worst possible path one can take if they’re hoping to to move on to a new satisfying relationship. (even writing that makes me SO glad I have a strong, ongoing marriage – you couldn’t PAY me enough to ever have to date again!)

Maybe this new FCP-X relationship will, by necessity be a “walk away” for many of you. That’s reasonable, just like in human relationships. Maybe the parties just aren’t ready to commit. But experience does tell me that the only way to uncover the reality of a new relationship is NOT to sit at the dinner table and compare everything in the new person with what you loved about the one thats left you. (and isn’t that one of the stongest sub-plots in this discussion? People feeling “left” by Apple potentially destroying their FCP-7 relationship?)

Most of this debate has been a cavalcade of CLOSED THINKING. And I’m raising my hand here to include myself.

So that’s my promise for my future participation here. Open mind. Low desire to preach. High desire to learn. To the extent I’ve violated that in my posts here, my apologies.

Forward. That’s where I want to go.

For what it’s worth.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner